Survivor's Guilt
by mkaz
Summary: Takes place 7 years after Breaking Dawn. As she's gotten older, Renesmee has realized she's missing something, but not sure what it is. A tragic accident forces her to examine the holes in her life, eventually leading her to embrace the human existence her mother abandoned years before. Jacob/Nessie, little bit of Nahuel/Nessie thrown in.


The Twilight books and their characters belong to Stephanie Meyer.

_And did you get what  
you wanted from this life, even so?  
I did.  
And what did you want?  
To call myself beloved, to feel myself  
beloved on the earth._

-Raymond Carver

The emergency vehicles, with their flashing and throbbing blue and red lights, sped to their destination on highway I-90. Their screaming sirens had a note of impatience in their noise. Fire trucks, ambulances, and police cruisers all parked at haphazard angles to flank the crushed maroon tour bus. Out of them flowed men and women determined to clean up the humongous mess that lay before them, no matter the cost of time or energy.

Most of the people who had been on the bus were known to be dead. Delicate human flesh simply hadn't been designed for the gauntlet they'd just been through. The rescue workers knew this as they tore into the multi-ton tin can, jaws and eyes tight as they did what they had to do.

"Goddamn, Neil," a firefighter said to his younger partner as they dug through the cab of the bus. "I haven't seen a mess like this since '99."

Neil wiped the sweat off of his pink brow and sighed. "Hate to say it, Al, but I kinda wish I'd been able to take an extra week of vacation."

"No shame in that, bud, no shame," Al consoled. He was about to say more when he froze.

Neil frowned, looking up from the grey upholstered seat he was cutting through to get to the driver's box. "What is it?"

"Shh!" Al scolded him. "I…hear something. Breathing, I think."

Al's faded grey eyes shifted restlessly from side to side as his ears strained to discern sound. Finally he shifted his gaze 30 degrees to his right and cried, "There! Under that window!" He scrambled through the debris to get to the spot. "Here, help me move this."

Together the two men heaved the jagged metal and glass frame away from the form that lay beneath it, and the site that met their eyes made them both gasp.

A girl had been trapped under the window. She lay there peacefully, as though she'd just decided to take a nap in the wreckage. But that wasn't the strangest thing about her. There were two other things, in fact.

The first was that she was blindingly beautiful. Her long, golden brown hair spread about her in ringlets, her lips were full and plump, forming a perfect "o." Her body was perfect, putting even the fittest, curviest model to shame. Even her skin was beautiful – its porcelain smoothness seemed to glow faintly in the mid-afternoon sun. To Neil, she looked like Sleeping Beauty. And even though he was far from a romantic man, even though he had a girl back home in Seattle, he felt the urge to kiss her and make those long lashes flutter open.

The second thing was far more disturbing. It was that, in spite of the fact that she'd been inside a bus that had been struck by an 18-wheeler and flipped over, there was not a scratch on her.

Tentatively Al leaned down and pressed two fingers to her neck. His eyes widened. He said nothing.

Neil frowned. "What is it, Al? Is she dead?"

The veteran firefighter looked up at his partner, confusion and fear settling deep into the lines of his face. He shook his head slowly. "The damndest thing," he whispered. "She's alive."

* * *

"Bella, love. You don't have to keep doing this."

Bella Cullen looked up at her husband from the cup of her daughter's palm against her cheek. "I'm fine, Edward. Really."

"I know it's causing you pain, to let down your shield for this long. You know that if Renesmee is able to…make contact, I will sense it."

"I'm her mother. She needs to know I'm here."

Edward turned his amber eyes to their child, who was lying motionless in the white hospital bed they'd moved into Edward's old room. She'd just turned seven and was, by dhampir standards, a fully grown adult. But seeing her so still and so vulnerable made him think of the days when she was just a baby and he worried about every sound, every smell, every person that came in contact with her – trying to keep her safe from everything.

Carlisle had managed to pull many—not just some—strings and have Renesmee transported from the hospital that had received her in Spokane to their home in Forks before her unique physiology could send off too many warning bells. Exactly how much plotting, scheming, and bribing Carlisle had had to do to get his granddaughter out of the hospital was unknown, but it was irrelevant. All that mattered was that she was being given the finest treatment available for someone like her.

Unfortunately, there was still nothing Carlisle had been able to do except confirm through a CAT scan that there had been no brain damage (at least from a human perspective), and that her higher brain functions appeared to still be intact. From a scientific point of view, Renesmee was simply…asleep.

"She'll know you're here," Edward said softly, still looking at their daughter. He turned back to his wife. "You don't need to suffer-"

_I've suffered far worse for her, Edward! Leave me alone! _Bella screamed in her mind at him. The force of the thought, especially coming from a mind that he was not used to reading, took Edward by surprise and he dropped his crossed leg from the top of the other knee.

The noise made their friend, Jacob, jump and turn around sharply. He'd been standing near the bed, looking out the window, on guard. Ever since the police had called them earlier that day and told them that Renesmee had been in an accident and was now lying in a coma in Spokane, he felt like thousands of needles were stabbing him all over his body. It had been the first time in years that Jacob had gone a whole day without seeing his soul mate, and the one day when they hadn't been together, tragedy had occurred. He vowed then and there that he'd never let her out of his sight again, in spite of Edward's valid arguments that something like that simply wasn't realistic. Now Jacob was attuned to every small sound, every shift in the air, hoping desperately that this meant that Renesmee was waking up.

But she wasn't. Jacob's dark, pained eyes turned to his love still lying there, asleep, with no indication of waking up any time soon. He sighed and turned back to the window, crossing his arms grudgingly.

Bella carefully moved Renesmee's hand from her left cheek to her right so she could grasp her husband's hand. "I'm sorry, hon. I didn't mean to snap like that."

Edward gently rubbed the back of Bella's hand with his thumb. "I know you didn't. We're not prepared for this. It's never been something we worried about."

"Does anyone ever worry about this? Even humans, with all their frailty? I don't think so."

"No, I suppose not." Edward held Bella's hand in one of his while he used the other to gently brush away a stray curl from Renesmee's face. "What on earth was she thinking? What would possess her to get on a bus with strangers and leave home?"

Bella shook her head. "Jake?"

"I don't know, Bells," Jake answered quietly, his back still to them. "I know that-that she'd been…quiet lately. 'Thoughtful' is the word, I guess."

Edward narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

Jacob turned in Edward's direction, still not quite looking at him. "I don't know, just since…you know, that thing with Renee, Nessie's been…looking at things differently."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Bella demanded.

Her old friend shrugged. "There wasn't anything to tell, really. It's not like she was saying scary things or acting really weird. I don't know. Things weren't off with us, and she never acted like she was unhappy with you guys, so, you know…" he trailed off.

Bella pursed her perfect lips together. "She should have come to me. She knows she can tell me anything. We would have worked it out."

Jacob and Edward's eyes met at that moment, a knowing look passing between them. But they both knew better than to argue with Bella. So Jacob changed the subject, back to a topic they'd discussed several times since they brought her home hours earlier, something he knew was guaranteed to make Bella feel better.

"Edward, you said that you heard some stray thoughts from Nessie. Are they still coming to you?"

"They are," Edward confirmed, playing along with Jacob's ameliorating act. "They're….disjointed. Fragmented. But they're there. Her brain is working." Edward didn't add that this was probably the M.O. for most coma patients.

Just then, the house phone rang. Esme's silver bell voice answered.

"Charlie," Edward announced automatically.

Bella sighed. "I guess I need to tell him."

"Yes. Go talk to him, love. We'll stay with her," Edward told her.

Bella gently took Renesmee's hand away from her face and got up to leave. She turned back before she left the room. "If she—"

"Any change at all, no matter how small, we'll get you, Bells," Jacob assured her.

Bella cast her golden eyes on her child, and for the first time in seven years, desperately wished she could still cry. With the stealth of a panther she silently went down the hall and down the stairs.

With a groan, Jacob allowed himself to sit in Bella's empty chair. For a moment, he regretted it, because now Renesmee was just a foot away, heartbreakingly pale and limp. It had been easier standing out at the window, being on guard. But now her warm hand was in his, and he had to acknowledge once more that the love of his life was hurt and there was nothing he could do for her except be there.

Edward of course heard his thoughts, and tried a little levity. "All that healing factor claptrap with shapeshifters must be bull, Dog, because you look like you've aged twenty years."

Jacob snapped his eyes to Edward's smug face and smirked, playing along. "You're one to talk, Bloodsucker." He looked over the vampire's head as if to study it. "Is that-is that a grey hair I see amongst that well-coiffed mane? No, I'm wrong. It's three!"

They chuckled together, but the gloom of the situation still loomed overhead. Edward and Jacob sat in silence for several minutes, watching over the girl they both loved, until Jacob finally got the courage to ask Edward something he'd been wondering about for hours that day.

Edward knew it was coming, but he allowed Jake the luxury of being able to work his way through the question as if the vampire didn't know exactly what the werewolf's question was going to be.

"Ed…you said that you heard Nessie's thoughts. What did you see? I know, it was just pieces, but…" he left it at that.

"Mostly recent stuff from her memory. The places she saw on the bus, the faces of the people she met. Having dinner with you, Seth, Sue and Charlie a couple of nights ago. Just fragments of stuff."

Jacob smiled sadly. "So she's thinking about me."

Edward frowned at Jacob. "Of course she is. Nessie loves you." When Jacob's mind responded instead of his mouth with his doubts, Edward clapped his shoulder comfortingly. "Hey, listen. That whole thing that happened a couple years back – she's gotten over it, you know. She understands. That wasn't the reason why she got on that bus. I'm sure of it."

Jacob grinned and punched Edward's shoulder. "Thanks, man."

Two seconds later, Bella's sad, beautiful face appeared in the doorway. "Charlie's coming over. He's angry that we didn't tell him earlier." She hugged herself. "I told him that he didn't have to come, that it was late and Nessie's doing well and comfortable, but he wouldn't listen. Edward, the heart attack he had—" her wind-chime voice broke.

With a cool woosh he had gotten out of his chair and had her in his arms. "He'll be fine, Bella. He's a strong man. He's managed to live through the insanity of being part of our family all these years. This isn't going to break him."

"We won't let it," Jacob piped up from behind them.

Bella kissed Edward's knuckles, then looked over at her best friend. "Jake, he'll be here soon. I know leaving Nessie would be hard, but if you could just be there when…"

Jacob held up his hand. "You don't even need to ask. Let's go." He turned to look at Nessie's calm, sleeping face. He leaned down and pressed a searing kiss to her forehead. "See you soon, Princess. I love you."

After Bella and Jacob left the room, Edward settled back in his chair and held his daughter's hand. He was over 100 years old now, but tonight was the first time he truly felt his age. If vampires could feel something close to weary, that would be what he was feeling.

He'd had to lie to them, Bella and Jacob, and it was weighing him down. Such a small thing, so seemingly insignificant, but so full of meaning. It was something he'd read in Renesmee, something that he'd dismissed at first but that was at the center of all the images and sounds and emotions that he'd been able to glean from the patchwork of thoughts in her comatose mind. He hadn't been able to quite translate it for a while, but in the last hour he had, and now the words soaked into him deeply, burying themselves like a worm in earth.

_Not enough._


End file.
